Star Candy (3) : In your mailbox, locker, or desk drawer appears a bag of star candy! There is no indication of where or who it came from other than a small tag that reads: “Happy Star Festival!” The small, colorful pieces of sugar seemed to almost glow faintly, and after eating them, the world looks a bit different. Cartoonish and much less…real. Is it a hallucination? Is it some new reality? The strange vision lasts only half an hour, and after it wears off, the rest of the candy seems to disappear. How strange!
By the next day, Laike was exhausted from all the compulsory community service. Any sane person would've argued that it wasn't compulsory at all, but Laike was convinced of it — he knew the crowd would stare him down and shame him if he walked away from that stupid tree without grabbing one of the wishes hanging from its branches. Pouty Laike sighed, adjusted the potted white twinkle tiger lily under his arm, and kept walking toward where he parked his bike.
It was late evening by the time he'd gotten out of work. One of his bosses had been acting coy all day about putting candy in his locker, and Laike didn't really know what to think about that, just like he didn't really know what to think of the ash piles from the other day. But if his boss didn't want to fess up to it, that was fine by Laike. He didn't want to deal with whatever the candy implied, anyway.
Laike crossed the street while checking his phone, somehow didn't get hit by a car, and climbed up the hill into the lengthy green space that lay opposite the mall's parking lot. Laike preferred leaving his bike there, even if it made for a longer walk. People were less likely to steal it.
But he didn't expect to walk back into music. The youth paused — sounded like violin? — and as he looked around from the border of trees, he expected to spot the musician on one of the raised flower beds. There weren't many places to sit besides the grass, and most people didn't bother with that unless they had a blanket down. Further back was the cemetery, and whoever was playing could be there, but usually people didn't loiter there.
His bike was nearby, but he was tired anyway, so why not eavesdrop on some tunes?
littlelilykitty
